Wendy & Eric -
Since the company is grid sampling and will have a good idea of where the best place is to start mining, would it not be plausible that John Cross said a "few weeks" to get 5000 carats as he anticipates higher than average grades to begin with.
Alluvials from my understading, are not some evenly spread out diamond operation, but are more likely to be patches of good and poor, which over a year's production would even out to roughly 10,000 carats a month, when in fact it could be 15,000 one month and 5,000 the next?